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Wednesday, April 01, 2015

Please can we talk Peaky Blinders?

Have you watched Peaky Blinders? No? Then I would like you to do something, and it is this.

I want you to get past the fact that Peaky Blinders is an odd and off-putting name and go watch it.

Because it is fantastic. So incredibly compelling. Much better than House of Cards, truly. And there are only two seasons (so far). And they are short, like eight episodes each.

Damn the BBC and their high-quality short-seasoned programming!

Netflix bought it from the BBC rather than re-making it. So it is English with some hard-to-understand accents. Nick's mom is from Yorkshire so I sometimes ask him to interpret. Sometimes we have to go back. Sometimes he makes his best guess. Sometimes he just shrugs.

Through it all, he refuses to use subtitles. One day I will actually learn how to use the new and many-buttoned remote and then I will do subtitles myself.

OK, so here's the deal.

The Peaky Blinders, silly as their name may be, are a
criminal gang. Tommy Shelby is the main character. He and his cohort fought in France in WWI. They've
been through terrible things. Tommy is regularly faced with death, he
calmly stares it down. And then has a whiskey.

He's like a 1919 British criminal version of Don Draper.

It's set in Birmingham, England, starting in 1919. Same time period as Downton! But a lifetime away in terms of social strata.

And if Sybil had met Tommy Shelby, she'd have loved him. (But who wouldn't? That boldness! Those eyes!) And THAT would've been a big, big problem for Lord Grantham. Much bigger than Branson the chauffeur. But I digress.

There is a lot of violence. I do have to cover my eyes quite a bit.

But it is so deliciously good. Please watch it and then come back so we can talk it.

Love that show! Can you believe that Tom is the same guy who played the Scarecrow in the Batman movie? He was totally creepy in that. Still has some of the best eyes ever, though. My hubby generally has to ask me to translate since I'm pretty good with accents! I love Tom's mom too. She's badass!

Hillary, I'm in Canada too. I only read t his post today - lack of time the last few years means I only get to catch up on Lemon 2 - 3 times a year. Since it was Lisa who got me watching Downton Abbey, I immediately tried Netflix, and yeah, these few months later, Peaky Blinders still isn't available.

But I did a search of YouTube, Peaky Blinders Season1, and it's all there. I'm home today, and it's 41 degrees out, so I'm going to try this series.